Preparing for winter

Residents have been advised to place reflectors or poles to mark the ends of their driveways so snowplows to not go across the lawn. When doing their own snowplowing, Cunningham said residents should not blow the snow back out into the road and direct their snow blowers towards the lawn of the side of their driveway.

"State law prohibits that," he said of blowing snow back onto the road. "It creates a road hazard for drivers."

The town has heard complaints about snowplows leaving too much snow at the end of their driveways, which Cunningham said they have worked hard to try and prevent. With cul-de-sacs, he chalked up the amount of snow at the end of residents' driveways to an issue of physics.

"The front is shorter [of the cul-de-sac] is shorter than the back of the lot, so it appears to the resident that we're dumping more on their driveway, but there's nowhere else for the snow to go," he said. "We try to move the snow to the middle of the cul-de-sac and we work very hard to keep the driveways as clear as possible when doing plowing."

Since the town does not have a parking ordinance for the winter season like cities such as Albany, keeping vehicles off the road can be a great help to those operating the snow plows. The reason for not having a parking ordinance, said Cunningham, is because the town has wider streets.

"It creates more work for the town," he said. "We have about 318 miles of town road, which means we plow 636 miles, because when plowing we have to go up the road and come down it. Where you have very wide roads, it can cause the staff to do a third trip because we don't have plows that are wide enough."